well, at the top of the show we asked you why are you awake. producer john tower with the answers. >> a familiar demo for us. i'm up because i've been binge drinking all night. if i were sober, sober, i would the remote and change the channel. phil karins is cool. my nickname in high school was phil cabins. my mick name the rest of the year. >> gooddictio diction but easy eyes. >> the hair especially. doesn't quite compare to this guy. ben nelson. that's gorgeous.

now to joe, we're starting that right now. >> it could be a real hassle figuring out what to get people for the holidays. to make it easy, we've curated the best of the best products from late night tv commercials. >> hi. i'm joe gray with the go-joe hands-free. the only device truly hands-free. it goes on in one second. hello. 1 mississippi. hi, mom, i can't talk right now. the go joe will hold the weight of your phone. even the weight of a five pound laptop. >> these are easy to pick up and put back down. they tear meat apart and rip ribs off the rack. i used to use a fork. >> get the fork out of here. >> i own your shake down. your shake down is for ketchup, mayonnaise, peanut butter in just eight seconds!

>> that cookbook won't stay open, takes up counter space and a mess. introdu introducing the way to keep the recipe with you. >> good morning. it's tuesday, december 11th. welcome to "morning joe." you like that, barnicle? >> i do. >> all right. wake up now. with us on set we have msnbc contributor, mick barnicle, former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst. steve brattner. >> he came with charts. willie, do you have a chart? >> no. >> he's disturbed. i don't know if you heard this. has he done this to you? >> we have two obesity stories we have to get to. we're not going to break. >> stalling right now. >> the filibuster reform should be passed but not passed yet.

our executive producer, alex, comes up to me this morning. like the syndrome, you stay here long enough start walking with a strut. alex corson, hey, call me acc 47. >> he's getting bold. >> yes! >> is that like a phil cavens thing? >> yes! >> i'm like, seriously, karins? so phil cabins? >> the baseball announcer in high school called him phil cabins. that stuck with him. >> think of all the things you've been called. >> i'm called that everyday. apparently i said something yesterday. >> what did you do? >> something about -- >> did you get in trouble? i don't know. i got a call from hugh hewitt. >> the radio guy? >> he's like, did you -- i just want to talk about what you said

today. it was like 7:30 at night, the kids are running around, you know. i said, what did i say? he said, you said we should pun punch, what, talk radio people in the face. >> well -- >> i said bullies. >> you meant that figuratively. >> if a person happens to be a bully, yes, pump him in the face. but he's not a bully, is he? >> he's not. >> he shouldn't be calling you. >>mi like michael nedvit. >> i think you posed it in the form of a question. what do you do to a bully? >> the answer was not a question. >> would you play along with this? >> you punch bullies that kick you around. >> absolutely. >> and try to take your lunch money. >> or someone else. >> in this case, i wasn't just talking about talk radio people. there are people that write

books that say outrageous things that are republicans in general elections. >> absolutely. >> and people in the blogosphere that hurt republicans in the general electio general election. >> there are people in the united states senate. >> did eau claiyo you clarify? >> i'm not sure. he called you up. >> what i'm talking about, if somebody -- hugh was around for nixon, the reagan administration. he's got cred, like craig shirley. he's not one of these people. after rush limbaugh got big, suddenly people said, hey, if he's making $30 million a year, i get one tenth of his audience, i'm making $3 million a year. see how i did that? alabama education, i don't need no chart. >> you had a bunch of pretenders come out and they were copies of

rush limbaugh. they were idiots. a guy like bill hewitt does. some other people. >> interesting. >> what's so interesting? what i'm saying. >> americans are living longer with fewer deaths from heart disease and cancer and more chronic illnesses and obesity is a problem and they're living longer sick sneer i was in the middle of a conversation. she does not care. i was hijacked. >> this is about winning. for too long, i think there are people more focused on making lots of money than they have about electing conservatives. >> yes. >> local markets are glutted with wannabes. >> it all started, limbaugh was like the guy that broke the ground and everybody said, oh, i want to be like him, whether they believed it or not. >> joe, you can't object to a free market economy. >> i don't object. >> getting paid what they're worth. >> i have no problem with some jackal out there that doesn't

believe or doesn't understand about friedman or a thing about true conservatism. if they can go out and make millions of dollars as hucksters, that's their business. my point is when they're called o out, i think, this is on the left as well as the right, politicians, candidates, they need to get back in their face and call them out. if glenn beck calls the president a racist who hates all white people, that's a good chance for mitt romney to prove he's got some character and stand up to him. he didn't do that. >> that is wrong. he didn't do anything. >> this is shocking, not that i'm not interested in your obesity story but afghanistan. mike barnicle, who would ever believe these troops. it says these troops still need help. if they want to shoot american troops they don't need any help, they keep the gun steady. >> that's front page "new york times" today.

1 out of 23 afghan brigades are combat efficient today. they need help. yesterday afternoon, 5:00 yesterday afternoon. >> you can smell it coming, mike. >> we will be stuck there after 2014, we've been saying it for years. >> a plane landed in new york. lance corporal 26 years old, his body will be buried today. yesterday, 28 years old, seal team 6 monroe, pennsylvania, killed over the weekend. 1 out of 23 afghan brigades, front page, "new york times." we got to get out of there. >> the thing is -- we've been saying it since 2009, they've been talking about tripling the number of troops, it doesn't work in afghanistan. we went from an anti-terror campaign to anti-insurgency campaign. it might have worked for a while in iraq, not in afghanistan. the times reports more violence in afghanistan today, mika, than there was before this surge, where we tripled the number of

troops and sent more americans over to die or be wounded or kept away from their families. >> yet another reason there's no point. that's the sad way to pull back but at some point, we have to consider. >> what do you do? >> reality. >> what do you do when we've been saying for three years because the people we interviewed for three years, you can look into their eyes and these policymakers had no idea what we were doing in afghanistan other than making sure this president and this congress wasn't responsible for quote losing the war. steve rattner, 1 out of 23, are we really going to get out in a year? >> i think one alternative is to get out in a year and basically turn it back to them and whatever happens happens. >> i think we should get out sooner. >> i'm just saying. >> we've heard this story before. >> it can go either way. we have to say we have to fix this or go now that the election is over, it's time to leave. we did what we could do. you can't wish for democracy

more than people wish for it for themselves. you can't wish for peace more than people wish for it for themselves. look at the history. we all know the history of afghanistan. no one has been successful in turning afghanistan into a stable place. >> it seemed like for a year, though, about a year, 18 months, there really really seemed like alexander the great had a shot. slipped through his fingertips, the british, the russians, us. who will be stupid enough to go there in the future. >> to be clear, after 2014 they say there will be no combat troops there, there will be americans in harm's way and read the paper, there will be americans dying there, for what? >> it is still a hotbed of terrorists and there seems to be some operation we can do other than to try to civilize all of afghanistan which will not work. >> we could spend some more time to keep our military more effective. i will get to this story. you will keep a straight face

because it's important. the "washington post" is reporting the u.s. army is getting rid of soldiers, dismissing them because they don't meet fitness standards. obesity is a rising concern in the armed forces, has even been cited by military officials as a national security concern. between 1998 and 2010, the number of active duty military personnel characterized as overweight or obese has more than tripled and now the leading cause of ineligibility for people who want to join the army, according to military officials. want to know what the healthiest states are? >> i want to know how to live longer. the u.s. today says sitting on the set of a show is not the way. >> sitting too much or in snow too much. unless you live in vermont, massachusetts, connecticut or utah. >> unhealthiest, alabama. >> will die. >> south korea, west virginia, arkansas, louisiana, mississippi. >> what all those states have in

common. north carolina. i see no trend. h i was in the land of -- let's do the news. >> i just was, actually. >> two sides of the story. >> okay. fine, thank you, rattner, thank you, willie. >> look at this! >> neighbor american cities. >> look at this, morsy, right here, his people are now beating up -- i thought he was a great hope. is that the story? >> no. major american cities are seeing their first success in stemming the growing weight of obesity -- rate of obesity, philadelphia, new york and los angeles and other communities across the u.s. are finding modest success rates in this. the number of reported obese children was down 5.5% over the last five years in new york city

schools, mayor bloomberg, researchers are not sure what's behind the decline. there's a growing awareness in this city, thanks to the mayor -- >> this mayor -- >> i think he's fantastic. >> he's a killjoy. >> what part of your joy has he killed? >> really? you can't smoke and eat disgusting food. >> what can't you do anymore? >> you want children across the city even in poor neighborhoods to have access to equally hea h healthy food as the wealthiest children in the world who live here. i'm story. i'm sorry. that that's terrible. he should stop that right now. >> i'm talking about smoking. >> willie and i we keep getting kicked out of the lobby of the 57th suite holiday inn. >> they had that smoking area, glass encased area. >> smoking yourself to death. >> i feel like i'm a second class citizen. >> i miss part of the sites you would encounter when there was

smoking in the city. the employees out like pows smoking their cigarettes. >> at least they wear walking down the stairs. >> you want bloomberg for a fourth term now? >> he's done an incredible job on this issue and people have made fun of him and mocked him and took out a one page ad in the "new york times." >> do you want him for a fourth term? >> i kind of do. is that bad? >> of course you do. >> what about democracy? 16 years of michael bloomberg. >> it was totally not democratic the way he got his third term. >> the big gulp. >> you have the big gulp. >> there are work arounds. i found some nice work around. >> help me out here, willie. help me out. we're talking about smokes. i'm just curious. why is it liberals are so crazy about tobacco smoke. >> because it kills you. >> can i finish? do i ever -- have i ever once

interrupted you? >> a pattern. >> sorry. i'm sorry. >> we need to have our even space. >> you talk, i talk. >> okay. >> can i talk? >> yes. >> why is it, they're like liberal, tobacco, big bad tobacco, and yet they celebrate that you kcan live long now in states. you can smoke pot, smoking pot is great, liberation, yeah yeah yeah, baby. >> doesn't kill you. >> but cigarette smoking is bad. >> it doesn't kill you. >> pot doesn't kill you. >> so pot's good for you, steve? >> it is good for you. >> yes. you only smoke it for like -- >> you just take it -- >> poor willie, when he was 15, he was climbing up, he had a coma. >> 2020. now, i'm 20/20.

>> my lord, the hypocrisy. >> you can get rid of those glasses. >> marijuana comes from nature a and -- >> is it addictive? no. rattner seems to know a lot. okay. >> it's not addictive? >> no. >> there are a lot of people i played in bands with who would like beg to differ. >> did we just blow through the -- what about the rest of the news? >> there's no news today. what do we have on the front of the post today, willie? >> this is terrible. >> all there. >> not good. >> my goodness. >> what about right to work? >> what about right to work? >> there's two big news stories to do. and senator mccain is going for senate foreign relations. >> that is interesting. that is interesting. john mccain wants to be on the committee so he can

cross-examine susan rice. we'll see if that happens. >> fascinating. >> should the mets pay, mike, dickey? >> they should. they need him and their fan base needs him. they should do it. >> think the money that zach grir grinke just got paid, they need him. >> what do you think? >> they need him. absolutely. >> how are the mets doing? >> happily, it's off-season. >> mika cannot believe what's happened to the segment. >> i'm embarrassed. >> this was a good rehearsal. >> i forget we were on tv. >> boom! >> you want me to tell you about the fiscal cliff? >> you get that extra half hour to work things out? show prep? >> we have a good show.

how about right to work? thousands of people are expected to converge on the mischigan state capitol in lansing as part of a sfwlooempts going to be interesting. steve. >> are we going to be serious? >> am i asking you about pot or gl growing the economy. growing weed or the economy. >> republican lawmakers are trying to push through this right to work. >> this is interesting actually. michigan is a heavily unionized state so why would it be going right to work. there's enormous downward pressure on wages on american companies around the world that can make things cheaper elsewhere than here and our wages are uncompetitive in a lot of ways. in effect what people in michigan have to decide, do you want fewer jobs at higher wages or lower jomore jobs at lower w they have decided they want more

jobs. >> you look at michigan and detroit, that's a pretty easy answer. >> the unemployment rate. >> the unemployment rate is horrible. detroit in 1960, i think, was one of the wealth nest city if not the wealthiest city in america and now one of the poorest. >> the fourth largest. >> this is a done deal, going through the house today, to a republican governor and says he will sign it. >> it's symbolic of two things, one, the politics of it all, what we've seen in wisconsin and elsewhere and the unpopularity of unions these days and secondly an economic phenomenon, basically a statement we want jobs and we're willing to take them, even if it means lower wages, fewer benefits, whatever. >> i'm sorry. i actually carried this around because i'm a total dork. have you read "atlantic monthly" article this month on the insourcing boom? you disagree, i can tell.

>> he's skeptical. >> he's laughing. he's stoned. >> i'm hungry. >> maybe it suggests that maybe outsourcing was a fad and not a good fad for american business. >> joe, these are stories they love these stories when they happen. the problem is when you get into these situations happening in not very large numbers. here has the really important part. where it's happening is where workers are willing to accept much lower wages to bring these jobs back. >> what do you think about jeff immelt's article where he says i'm bringing jobs back to america makes more economic sense. >> he was bringing jobs back to america. i wasn't prepared for this quiz this morning. i can tell you from memory, he brought a bunch of jobs back in lexington, kentucky. >> he is stoned. >> get lexington, kentucky out. >> do you feel like we do? we're going to kick out with frampton after he's done with

this answer. >> he brought back a bunch of jobs at lexington, kentucky but at much lower wages. >> what kind? >> it was appliance jobs. >> they have the huge apply hans city down there and all these massive buildings and their own zip code and one building after another closed down. he's starting up one assembly line after another. are they going to get paid $30 an hour? no. >> here's the point. how do you have a ro best recovery when you have wage compression, people who made $30 an hour making $14 an hour. how do you grow an economy like that. >> the point is do we want these jobs building in germany or alabama. want them in lexington, kentucky or china? >> you mentioned germany. volkswagen opened a plant in chattanooga a few months ago, 2,000 new jobs. bob corcoran was down there. 2,000 jobs, every one of which started at $14.50 an hour.

>> right. they're not all going to be at -- >> so volkswagen was moving these jobs here because we're the low wage country compared to germany. >> dude, are you suggesting we push these jobs away? >> i'm not. >> i would rather americans have a shot at a $17 an hour job than having it in china. >> i agree. >> find a way to do better. i actually agree with you. but you have to understand the consequences are pretty severe for american lifestyles. >> again, though, i'm sorry, mike, but the consequences are, we have two choices, we can't get 1965 wages, we either have these jobs in china or lexington, either have them in alabama or germany and this is at least for some of -- a chance for younger americans to get some good jobs. >> joe, if you're taking a job that pays $14.50 an hour. it means one of two things, a, you don't have a job so you're getting a job or b, you're taking a job that's higher

paying job. come on, this is good news! 1 $14. $14.50! >> they're not all $14.50. harvard business edition, you should read it. i bring it up as backdrop to this michigan debate. if you're a union leader there, do you want to lose all the jobs or get a job at 18, $19 an hour? >> if you're a union leader, you probably vote for fewer jobs at higher wages because you will protect your base. if you're an average michigan person, which is why this thing is probably reasonably popular there, i just want a job and willing to take it at $14.50 a job. >> last week, apple announced the same thing, they're bringing jobs back. executives said they had a duty to do it. it was their obligation to do it. >> when you do something for that reason, it's not a huge number. guys, read the atlantic monthly. we had the author on. james on, come back.

the suggestion in this article at least, outsourcing was a fad, a corporate fad. some businesses trying to make a quick buck over a decade. at the end of the day, it didn't work and even if it worked for a while, it doesn't work in our economy. >> saying it's a fad is a really dangerous thing to say. that's not what it was. it wasn't a fad. the jobs may come back if people cut their wages enough. that's why they're coming back but not because outsourcing didn't work. coming up, we talk to mississippi governor, haley barbour. >> do you know bill cabins? >> yes. he's amazing. >> and we will talk have jim up. first here's -- >> phil cabins! cabins! how's it going? >> i made the decision to embrace it. [ laughter ]

>> just order up my new business cards. good morning, everyone. rain is moving into "new york times" on the turnpike into southern new england. we have light rain this morning. it will exit this afternoon. i promise to everyone in new england and the atlantic for the first time since thursday of last week we will see sunshine this afternoon. temperature staying steady in the big city. already a cold morning in buffalo and pittsburgh. this afternoon, not bad. it will be a nice wednesday afternoon. i toeldld you we had the lowest amount of snow covering the u.s. >> now covers 32% of the country and all of the northern plains and northern rockies and central rockies, the one area of the country still snow starved, new england in the mid-atlantic usually where we have snow by this time of the year. i don't see any coming any time soon.

windchill, bundle up through the middle of the country. all the way down to 34, even in san antonio. florida is the warm spot on the map along with los angeles. hit and miss showers and thunderstorms in florida but nothing like the tornadoes you saw yesterday. east coast, we dry up and in the midwest, we're remaining nice and chilly. not only do i have a new nickname but they probably don't believe i play baseball. see, that wasn't bad. [ male announcer ] this is amy. amy likes to invest in the market.

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share "not even close." share "you owe me..." share "just right." the share everything plan. sharable data across 10 devices with unlimited talk and text. get a droid razr m by motorola for $49.99. the morning papers. we will start from a parade of papers. "san francisco chronicle." $1.9 billion settlement with

british giant hsbc. they were charged with enabling drug cartels to launder money through the american financial system. >> is that bad? >> billions have dollars on behalf of iran. >> they keep moving the lines. >> i wish the regulators would pass a freakin law and stick with it. >> put your earpiece in so they can tell you to be quiet. >> to laund-if you can't laundey through mexican cartels, what can you do these days? >> sharing with marketers and other third parties without notifying parents. >> this is just not good. >> only 20% of children's apps provide disclosures about that data collection. >> this is the cutest thing. the pope is tweeting. "usa today," pope benedict will make history tomorrow when he

takes to twitter to answer his pari parishioner's questions. he already has 900,000 followers in eight languages on his handle at pontiff-x. >> he follows me. >> 900,000 for the pope? beaver's got like 25 million. you would think the pope would be -- >> get off his back! >> i want to do that at some point. i know we need to go to "politico." why don't these companies making big profits pay people better than $14 an hour? it's kind of simple when you're making record profits. i don't get it. >> it's capitalism. companies are not charged with paying workers more, charged with making profits. >> they can pay them a little more, can't they? it's called greedy. >> no, it's not. >> if i made a lot of money i would pay people more. >> the president gets business people in his office for four years, hey, hire people. it won't work.

>> thanks for visiting. >> don't hire people just to hire people -- >> because you're making record profits. >> because you have to fire people when it goes down. >> go ahead, willie. >> and speaking to jim, political playbook, executive editor of "politico." good morning. how are you? >> i'm good. >> your first topic, taking us to behind the person and look at what some business leaders are saying now about the economy. what are you hearing? >> we spent the last three months talking to the folks in the white house, congressional leaders and ceos and what should be done about the fiscal cliff talk. what surprised us off the record behind the scenes, democrats and republicans agree they should be doing a lot more than they're talking about as part of the current negotiations. they said if you did more on tax reform and particularly on the corporate side and more on social security as far as limiting the growth of that program, more on medicare, if you did something to exploit this oil and gas boom that we're seeing in north dakota, texas

and across the country, if you did more to get high skilled immigrants into town, you could not only have an economic recovery but an economic boom. there's a lot of agreement off the record on this, but that politicians on both sides are scared to go out there and be the first to say, hey, let's do these big things that could have an appreciable effect on the economy. >> steve, do you agree with that assessment? what are the big things that need to be done? >> i totally agree. the thing that's depressing about the fiscal cliff plan, we will change the tax code, change this, a tax on gas to help the energy industry, all this stuff has receded into the mist and all we're trying to do is get a deal and be done with this. it is sad. in the beginning of a second term, you should be trying to do big things. >> politics often gets in the way. these guys agree behind closed doors what should be done but nobody wants to step out on the ledge and say it publicly.

>> right. you have a polarized congress. at this point, both sides think the other side is not on the level and they're interested in taking the partisan political position than accomplishing a bipartisan result. the good thing is high skilled immigrants. hard not to find someone on both sides that don't think you should allow folks that have expertise in science and technology into the country. instead of doing it, both sides use it as a lever in the immigration debate and keeps getting spooled up inside that debate and nothing gets done. >> haven't the republicans been passing it through the house and democrats won't take it up in the senate. >> they have passed it through the house but what democrats say is let's just allow more high skilled immigrants in there. what republicans want in exchange is a reduction in other immigration visas being approved. there is a clear path to getting it done. what republicans will say maybe we will do that and the president will want it to be part of comprehensive

immigration reform. that's what's in congress. certain things both sides say are the same thing to do, on truth serum, and don't do it either because they don't want to give the other side victory or use it as leverage in a debate. >> jamie dimon says businesses have lu quiddity and the table is set and now we just need to add good policy to that. jim, thanks so much. we'll talk to you. coming up, a playoff preview on monday night football, a one-sided one. houston goes to new england and gets smacked around by tom brady. we're at walmart with the simmons family. how much is your current phone bill? four sixteen seventy six a month! okay, come with me -- we're gonna save you money. with straight talk at walmart, you get unlimited talk, text and data

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wig showdown in the nfl last night. monday night football, 9-3 patriots on fire hosting the 11-1 texans, hoping to see if the texans were for real. despite texans having a better record. tom brady, play action. brandon lloyd, wide open. patriots all over the texans early. 21-0 at the half. third quarter, more from brady.

this time throws one up for donte stallworth. breaks away from the defense. 28-0 there. brady, four touchdown passes. starts the fourth quarter. hits brady on the screen pass. texans finally catch a break when j.j. watt, a beast, forces a fumble but patriots fall on the ball in the end zone for a touchdown. everything going their way. lands in a route, 42-14, patriots, just one game back of the texans for the playoff race. patriots have won seven games in a row. the only thing hotter, peyton manning and broncos won eight games in a row. >> just not as good as patriots? >> just not added good as patriots. i take them every time. >> i wonder whether they have inflated records. atlanta had a bad week sunday

losing to carolina. >> you reminded me of that game. i was watching the falcons. the way it went, i'm thinking about back in high school, mika, they have raccoons. run across the stadium 50-yard line. i'd be running as quarterback, and the raccoon get in my way. those were the good old days. things like that don't happen anymore. >> funny you bring that up. in cincinnati, fans come for the football and there was a raccoon inside the stadium. sunday's game against the cowboys, fans scooped up a raccoon on the loose in the stands. >> make a good hat. >> calmly walked him out of the seconds, in harm's way. the fan had to undergo rabies treatment. >> i don't think you pick up raccoons. >> that's a guy comfortable around animal. >> you grab it around the neck and hold it tight. you can carry it. >> around the scruff.

>> you want to snap its neck, if necessary. >> strange moment. >> mika likes her blood sports. >> just know how to handle animals. >> blazers make a free-throw. and johnson tries to take the ball away from the ref and officials throws johnson out of the game, give me the ball back. nope, wouldn't give it back. had to be ejected. what are you going to do, go after the ref? what is wrong with him? >> what are you doing? >> threw his mouthpiece at the official. that's a long suspension coming. >> seriously, slowly back away. >> that's making me think, i want to watch the nba. >> johnson said after the game, the official didn't say anything to him, that he quote just lost his cool. >> dude. do roids really do that to you? >> i don't know. a moment of instability. >> maybe he should get some medicinal.

rattner's got a stash. >> when we come back. dan bartner joins us for must read opinion pages. brds i always wait until the last minute.

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dancing in their heads... ...we have these. home depot gift cards. give the gift of doing, in-store or online. the game you're playing is small ball. you're talking about raising rates on the top 2% that would run the government for 11 days. you just got re-elected. how about doing something big that's not liberal? how about doing something big that really is about partisan. every big idea he has is a liberal idea that drowns us in debt. how about manning up here, mr. president, and use your mandate to bring this country together to stop us from becoming greece. >> okay. there we go. some advice there for the president. here with us now former white house counselor for president bush. ceo of the consulting firm, hill

and milton strategies. dan bartlett back at the table. good to have you this morning. a couple must reads to look at. >> you can ask a question if i can ask rattner a question. you go first. >> when are you going to man up? what happened, man? we republicans, we used to drive liberals crazy. we'd win elections we shouldn't win. we would steal senate seats we should never steal. we would shock -- they never saw it coming. willie geist talked about the morning after the 2004 election, you had liberals on the upper west sidewalking around like zombies. some of them walked straight into the hudson river. that doesn't happen. we're not the smart party, we're the stupid party. what happened? >> well, there's that. >> what happened in '12? how did we perform so badly? is it our tactics? >> well, the primary process

obviously didn't help us when we had such a crowded field. we couldn't rally around a candidate and set of ideas and philosophy. if you back up even and s say -- forever ah would have said in the white house when we passed the bush tax cuts the focus of all the attention, if you would have said a second term democratic president was about to lock in 98% of those tax cuts, we would have been saying high-fives, wow, we won. i will say republicans have an obligation to hold the congress and white house feet to the fire when it comes to the spending. this conversation we're having is crazy it's all foc element. as was said in the previous report by vanderheim. everybody understands what has to happen and one of the reason is don't live in washington now. it has to get done. tactically, there were a lot of mistakes in 2012. what were you so surprised about the election?

that republicans were so surprised they got beat. >> yeah. you look at the primary campaign, it was a nightmare, we said it all the time. you look at the convention. i remember republicans being so shocked that actually came on and said our convention was terrible. you look at the democratic convention, clockwork, unbelievable, got the face out they wanted. i'm not knocking out clint eastwood, i love "dirty harry" but for him rambling on with a speech. would george w. bush ever allowed any hollywood actor to go out there on the biggest night of his political career without knowing what he was going to say. >> not on his life. >> not on his life. bush would have never allowed that to happen. >> no way. >> would karl rove have allowed that to happen? would you have allowed that to happen. >> come on, dan bartlett. >> man up! >> this is a little off topic but on topic, i don't understand

what's wrong with our country and ford. i love ford. i have an f-150. i love that ford. huge pickup, guzzles gas, but buyers are falling in love, rattner. it's the raptor 411 horsepower v8 riding atop big wheel oversized tires. it's making new fans for its performance in ice, snow, rocky hill tops and roaring over desert dunes. we have a lot of those in america. apparently it's selling off the shelves. it's $44,000 starting price, double the f-150. the gas mileage is awful. it's awful. >> what is it? >> 11 miles per gallon in the city. what's wrong with people? what's wrong with companies? i don't get it. this is 1978. >> we were driviere driving aroy on the turnpike.

>> the stupidist thing i've seen. >> actually pickups are not selling well. >> apparently that is. >> this one is selling well. >> why are they even making it, steve? >> it's america. >> like capitalism and let's not pay people either. we need to find our core a little bit. our core is we're really stupid idiots that eat too much and drive cars that get 11 miles per gallon of gas. don't care how much it costs. >> they're great. >> what's it like? >> it rides like a cadillac but it can go through dunes. it's fantastic. >> that's great. >> you said you had 150. >> no. a friend of mine has one. >> really? if you read that, it says it's like riding a marshmallow. >> i need this. >> i can hook you up. >> you can't. >> i like ford. >> can i tell you good news. >> what is it? >> in 20/20 --

>> will go bankrupt. >> can i please finish? >> another one will die. >> she keeps interrupting. in 20/20, the united states will be the number one producer of oil in the world. combine that with the remarkable advantage we will have in number gas, everybody will be driving a raptor. gas at 97 cents a gallon. >> gas is not going to be 97 cents a gallon. >> there'll be a mood kill like your buddy bloomberg. call that scar bborough country. a raptor in every garage, my man. our days coming, willie. the day is coming. >> stay with us. >> i want to talk about the raptor more. when we come back. nbc news political director chuck todd will be here. he will be talking about his time in a raptor. is there a back seat there? >> oh, yeah. >> we have "new york times"

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i think if the truth were known, many many senators would be very envious, as i am and i

would thank the presides officer about that hair of ben nelson's. that is a mop of real hair. it's so often people call his office, they believe he has a toupee. it's his hair. he'll pull it for you any time just to show you that it's real. he has hair like a 15-year-old, mr. president. and so i have to acknowledge i am a little envious of his hair. >> dan bartlett. >> i can't touch that one. >> we lost to that guy? how did we do that? >> it's called candidate recruitment. >> my lord. can we see the last couple of seconds. >> like after he finishes talking, i don't know what happened there. >> wow. >> maybe it was a freeze frame.

is that what happened to the tape? >> i think he was waiting for the laughs in the room and they didn't come. >> they didn't come. >> that was majority leader harry reid on the senate floor yesterday giving his tribute to retiring senator ben nelson. >> you know he's got hair like a 15-year-old. >> you do, too. >> i do. coming up, political analyst jeff greenfield and "washington post" eugene robinson and then the republican party is on a mission definitely not to repeat the mistakes of the past year. and the man in charge of finding those solutions, former mississippi governor haley barbour will join us right here on "morning joe." >> is that a toupee? >> wow.

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want other leaders to accept a cut and blaming it on the rich. >> today, the white house gave a tour of the presidential decorations and that is not it. >> how do you know? >> i hate when that happens. >> welcome back. look at the pretty shot of washington d.c. this morning. welcome back to "morning joe." steve rattner and dan bartlett still with us joining us on set, from yahoo! news, jeff

greenfield. and from washington and msnbc political analyst, eugene robinson. >> i'm reading the jeff greenfield column. >> isn't it fantastic? >> it's always fantastic. he posted at 4:00 a.m. this morning. i was weeping by 4:15. it was unbelievable. it really was. except i disagree with it. everything about it. the misleading second term curse. poor barack obama, after fighting and spending his way to a close but clear re-election, he's doomed to four years of agony, thanks to that second term curse that affects just about every president who's had the misfortune to win a second term. the litmyany appears compelling from lincoln to fdr setback to nixon's disgrace to reagan's iran contra scandal to clinton's impeachment, to george w. bush's

collapsing popularity a second term sounds so unappealing it's almost surprising obama didn't ask for a recount. it doesn't afflict every president. second, for many president, the woes of the second term are rooted in action and decisions taken in the first term which raises the dicey question about what might come to afflict this president. jeff, you did the laundry list. you look at nixon, wins 49 states, two years later, he's out of office. you look at reagan, who wins 49 states, the night of the midterm, iran contra is launched. bill clinton impeached, on and on. >> yes. except that, of course, almost everything you list is a consequence of what these presidents did in their first terms. water gait happen watergate happened in nixon's first term. iran contra is one exception. the seeds of that are in the attempt to aid the contras in nicaragua first term.

monica lewinsky showed up at the white house in 1995, first term. george bush's iraq agony was because of decisions he made in his first term. there's a certain myth about this. people say you get re-elected and get arrogant and cocky. you look a lot of this is what's happened to presidents before they get re-elected. a way of me say, even if you do disagree. i saw bartlett nodding his head so i think i'm going with him. you have to think before you casually say there's a second curse. after impeachment, clinton 11th the white house with 66% approval rating and after iran contra, reagan left with a 63% approval rating. it's not that cut and dried presidents have to go through this. >> you do agree, let's take reagan, the most famous case. you had complacency, you had mistake at vickburg, reagan people bored going around germany looking for mercedes instead of figuring out what

graveyard they should go to. you look at the overreach in iran. you can say the same thing with bill clinton. yes, it occurred in '95, but a lot of arrogance made a bad situation much worse in the second term. >> here's my other question. how come we don't talk about a first term curse. clinton lost both houses of congress in '94. reagan got clobbered and republicans lost 62% in 1982. if it's bad enough you don't get to a second term. there's a certain laziness. that said, if you look where obama is now and look at what could afflict him in the second term. you already see things down the road. if iraq and afghanistan go south, his decision to end american participation in those countries is going to be seen as a great mistake. if the arab spring turns into a nuclear winter, those decisions

are going to afflict his second term. all i'm saying is take a breath before you do a universal theme all presidents are afflicted by a second term. >> of course, we know all presidents are afflicted by a second term and talk about the president's second term course. we're not suggesting the president was arrogant or his people were arrogant, there is -- you've been through so much four, five years into it, is there an exhaustion from not seeing your family, from not eating right, from not living right. you get ground down. >> absolutely. there is that reality, not only the president himself and fatigue factor and staff. i think for the common theme, jeff, typically a second term president overinterpreter overi mandate when they're just

rejecting the other candidate. we made that mistake about social security and felt we had a mandate and didn't. we main wonly because the country was for george w. bush fighting the war on terror than john kerry and convinced ourselves we had a mandate on social security and came out- >> it's hard not to. president obama just like president bush and president clinton, beaten up, battered, abused for four years, called -- with all three of these men, they were illegitimate presidents, they were un-american, they undercut the very values and then win re-election and your chest goes out, my critics were all wrong -- >> well -- >> my supporters were all right. charge, right? >> absolutely. >> go ahead, quickly. >> i was going to say i think president obama was going to say he was not going to take this position he was re-elected and

had a mandate and political capital and will use it. i think he has been restrained. >> oh -- >> he's still campaigning and it's over. >> he was criticized in the first term for sitting in the white house and not going out and selling his policies and now he's going out and selling his policies and all you guys are criticizing him for campaigning. >> no, no. we were criticizing him a week ago. it has changed. we were criticizing him a week ago for running campaign events instead of sitting down and talking to john boehner. he's talking to john boehner now and we're all better off because of it. >> he's still going out and talking to the people with his message. my point is congress will deal with this fiscal mess one way or another. if they get it done, it will be a great accomplishment for everybody. we may get immigration reform since republicans seem to now want immigration reform. i'm not sure what else you can get from congress in this atmosphere. what i worry about obama in the second term is not arrogance and

complacency, all that may be true. i wonder what you may get done with congress still in a state of gridlock. >> this is the biggest fear of republicans we cut a deal in the short term on fiscal cliff without any real spending reform or tax reform and won't have enough time or political will to get the real reforms that need to take place and republicans raise taxes and get no spending cuts. >> that's the biggest fear of democrats we don't deal with thi this. >> eugene, we were showing the tape of harry reid. we write, republicans must wise up. the biggest problem the republican party faces is not uninspiring candidates or unsound tactics, it is unpopular ideas. >> good lord, gene, you have just written a column i disagree with even more than jeff gre greenfeld's column. it will be one of the better segments. we can talk about that for five hours. keep reading, i can't wait to hear what's next. >> this reality was brought home in last month's election and

playing out in the struggle over how to avoid the fiscal cliff and we will see it again in coming fights of immigration and entitlements and a host of other things. the sad thing is republicans get this stuff so wrong that democrats aren't even forced to go to the trouble of getting it right, faced with an opposition that verges on self-parody, progressive thinkers are just mostly phoning it in and this won't change until somebody defibrillates the gop and we detect a pulse. >> what say you to his remarkably insightful column? you live on the upper west side and having been out of the upper west side in 45 years. not having been out of the upper west side in 45 years. >> this sounds like he just got off the night shift of republic stee

steel. >> i'm telling you, the class of mainstream media drive me wild. >> i'm happy to make your morning. tax cuts and deregulation. tax cuts and deregulation. we heard that and tried that and hasn't solved all our problems. we need new ideas on some of this stuff. if you take an issue like immigration, it's not enough to say self-deportation, as mitt romney said. the republicans party doesn't really offer a lot more. they didn't come up with the dream act, they didn't come up with anything that takes us forward. as a result, democrats don't really have to work hard to come up with a solution other than being more reasonable than the republicans. and they reap all the political benefit. i think you saw that play out on issue after -- you saw that play out on entitlements during the

campaign, you saw it play out on raising taxes on the rich, and again, it allows progressives to be lazy, frankly, because republicans are so far out in right field. i think that's bad for the country. >> dan, gene says the gop's biggest problem is not uninspiring candidates or unsound tactics, unpopular ideas. what do you think? ? if that were the case, i don't think you would have so many elected republican governors and wouldn't have a majority of republican legislatures throughout many states in the country. we're seeing real ideas put into place whether it be on education or pension reform or spending and taxes. i don't believe it. >> let me ask you that question. why do republicans control 60% of the governor's seats? why do we have a majority of state senators across america? why do we have a majority of state legislators across america and in washington we have a party that's been battered and bruised in an election we should have won. what's wrong with our national

party? >> i believe because of the way we nominate our presidential candidates, the process forces them to a very narrow prism of ideology and the congress i think the gerrymandering on both sides, the fact you have to be more concerned about your primary than you do your general election hurts our cause and ultimately hurts the democrats cause as well. >> don't you think you didn't have the right candidates in this primary last time? >> right. i think that's because they understood what they would have to do to con port their beliefs or views or positions to win and i think they decided not to join that process. >> that really is a problem, jeff. i'm not exactly sure why it was a republican problem this year. this used to be the democratic party and talk about the san francisco democrats from 1984, that has become us. >> i was thinking this does remind me -- >> the convention, if you're too young and living in san francisco, and you're fuming, while you smoke pot getting ready to wake up and go to work, i meant no disrespect

whatsoever. most of the people on this panel i learned this morning smoke pot and love san francisco. the democrats held their convention in san francisco in 1984. go ahead. >> i have a feeling you were smoking about 10 minutes ago. but the twinkies are all gone. it is like 20 years ago or so, when the democrats had to go through a primary process, to use an old popular front, no enemies to the left, you negotiated who could come up with the biggest guaranteed annual income or least aggressive attack on crime or anything like that. the republicans in this last go run, in some of those debates, this may seem trivial, one thing i would do if i was republicans, ban audiences. when you heard the audiences applaud executing more people or letting people starve to death and candidates playing to them, this was not a broad message to the all right. you have the primary system and

afflicted democrats until bill clinton came along and redefined the party, you can't have a national party say we need this candidate because there is no national party. >> right. >> candidates go into a primary process. if they have a strong base and enough money or one guy with $100 million checkbook, they can stay in the campaign and drive the consensus candidates nuts. >> so help me out. what happened this past year? do we need a front loaded system? do we need somebody that wins quick? how do we avoid having herman cain at the top of the field one week, our dear friend, don't trump the next week. >> rick perry. >> rick perry, who sometimes forgets his last name the next week. sarah palin. >> my lord. >> i'm dead serious. guess what. nothing against any of these people, other than rick perry, the governor of texas, most of these people could not win a

senate seat or a governor seat. they just couldn't. and yet americans say, that's the republican party. herman cain- >> i like him. >> he's in first place for three weeks. sarah palin -- >> no doubt i think republicans hate having all those republican primary debates that allowed them to get up and entertain opposed to maybe actually win. but when you have a certain small slice of the population in iowa and south carolina dictating which candidate will resonate, that's a real problem. i think some sort of reform of the primary process and let a larger swath of the american people and republican party have a say in this early on, i think we will continue to have this problem. >> i guess the question is, gene, why did the jeb bushes of the party, why did the mitch daniels, why did -- we have haley coming up, why did people who ran the republican party on a state level or national level, why didn't more of those leaders

jump in this time? >> well, i think two reasons. one, they know the process. they knew what the process was going to be. some had individual reasons. also, at the time, remember when people were making the decision, we had just killed osama bin laden. president obama's popularity ratings were way up and it kind of looked like this could be a fairly easy election for him, certainly looked like he was going to be hard to beat. he didn't look vulnerable until a bit later. sure, they could have jumped in but it would have been late and there was a process and they sat it out, i think. to the detriment of the party and ultimately perhaps to the detriment of the country just because of this lack of competition, i think, they made it's easier for the democrats than it should have been. >> a lot of these same issues exist on the democratic side in terms of the primaries, debates,

audienc audiencys. >> in twenty 16. in 2008 we had two terrific candidates and some others were okay. i wonder why democrats were able to get the right people into the race and republicans weren't. >> you think they will in 2016. >> i don't even know who the people are in 2016 with one exception. >> republicans or democrats? >> in the democrats, it looks like hillary. >> i don't think she'll run. >> you don't? >> for any love of god, we can't really be analyzing the 2016 presidential race. we can't. there's got to be an interception here somewhere, place to go. >> i know that makes you feel superior, however that fits into your psyche, go ahead, that's fine. the question is, though, we have haley barbour up next. the question for haley barbour is, he's taken a leadership role in the rnc, how do we avoid this catastrophe as republicans four years from now. you have to look at the playing field. i could tell you four years ago

jeb wasn't going to jump in he thought the party was out of control. i could tell you chris christie, two years ago wasn't going to jump in. what is going to make these people more likely to jump in four years from now. you can sit there and not worry about it. for people that don't want this to continue for years, we can't. >> it wasn't pot. you're on meth. >> the question i think you can be asking for 2016 and whatever is not the players, but indeed the process. here, you can look back to the past because we know what happened. when bill clinton ran in 1992, he challenged the party. he said, you are wrong on a lot of stuff. the american people -- almost exact quote crushed us neither with their pocketbooks or security. he brought them an agenda. whoever you want to analyze four years before, figure that out. >> let's talk to haley about that. >> we'll ask him. i bet you he wouldn't be afraid

of those people they called you about. the conservative -- >> what i love about haley in the middle of the campai campaign -- dan, we're in the middle of the campaign and tim pawlenty whom we love. we loved him before he ran and after he ran. >> good guy. >> i asked him five times if he was glad that olympia snowe was a republican. he wouldn't answer the question. haley comes on next. are you glad olympia snowe is a republican? hell, yeah, i wish jim jeffords was still in the senate because even in his most liberal day, he was better than the most conservative democrat. i said hell, yeah. that's my party, my leader, the mindset. we have to get pragmatic. it's about winning, not about feeling self-righteous. >> haley is listening to you now. eugene, thank you. read your column at the "washington post".c."com. >> dan bartlett, we went off the

rails and didn't make sense. >> can you get me a cut rate on the raptor? >> man-up. >> man-up. >> that's what's wrong. you guys are what's wrong with america. we have the former governor of mississippi, haley barbour and msnbc news political director chuck todd joining the political discussion on "morning joe". ♪ i am the ghost of cookies past. residue. so gross. well you didn't use new pam, so it looks like you're "stuck" with me. [ female announcer ] bargain brand cooking spray leaves annoying residue. that's why there's new pam.

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now through sunday.

how many of you can afford to pay another $2200 in taxes?

sn>> that's not good for businesses either. >> he treats people very well. >> if john lennon said a working class hero was something to be, you would be a working class her hero. >> i think it's disgusting companies making record profits paying people so little it is a debate that jobs go overseas. pay people better, pay them a living wage, something they can live on. why is that so hard and naive? i don't get it. joining us from washington d.c., former republican governor of mississippi and former chairman of the republican national committee, the great haley barbour and chief white house political director and correspondent and host of the daily run down. chuck todd, let's get news out of the way. it seems like quietly we're making progress on the fiscal cliff, people are saying garbage out in public.

john boehner sitting down with the president, seems these two men are getting the job done. >> i think it is real. the president, no public events yesterday. even yesterday's event was never designed to be a fiscal cliff photo-op. there are very few fiscal cliff photo-ops planned this week. it is serious business. they have to come to a framework at the end of this week if they're going to get it written in time and passed in time so they all don't have to spend christmas in washington. joe, realize, whatever deal they agree to, it will be very fragile and it's likely to include more triggers for the end of next year. so they'll agree to some tax reform. if they can't write it, then say the highest tax rate will move from 37 to 39. on entitlements, they'll agree they have to find a certain amount of money and special commission but if they don't agree to it maybe the eligibility age goes automatically up. they'll be sort of sequester triggers to force the action so the deal whatever they come to

will be a fragile agreement. >> haley, let's talk about the position republicans are going to be in. you're going to have republican lawmakers elected in the house with huge majorities being told to support tax hikes when the there's no tax reform on the table, to support tax hikes, when there's no hope of medicare reform, instead of four trillion we heard about with bowles-simpson, maybe 2.2, 2.5 trillion. do republican house members agree to that deal? >> we'll see. first of all, the question is, what is in the deal? if there is a tax increase for the top 3%, the top two brackets, whatever it is, the question for me is not should we pass that by itself because we shouldn't, but what else goes along with it? do we get real entitlement reform? let's face it, joe, the problem is not that we tax too little, we spend too much.

if you get $80 billion a year in tax hikes, which is what you get from raising the top two brackets back, that's in one year, that pays for government about eight days, maybe nine. so that doesn't solve any problems. the problems are on the spending side. publicly, at least, the president doesn't want to do anything about spending. his idea of a spending cut is to make the higher income people pay more for their medicare and call that a spending cut. just look at november -- october and november's cbc report, about revenue. revenue was up $30 million. i'm sorry, $30 billion in the first two months of the fiscal year yet the deficit shot up $57 billion more than last year because spending in the same two months was $87 billion more than last year. we don't have a 1$1.2 trillion

deficit because we tax too little, because we spend too much. >> jeff. >> hi, haley. you've been around the block a while. are we going to get something out of washington that is a really substyti ststantive agre just looks real enough to satisfy the public. i don't think you will satisfy the public. the public is very divided, as the election showed. i hear all this mandate mandate talk but the president got less than 51% of the vote. he won because he made mitt romney unacceptable. he didn't run on his record. but the fact of the matter is, nothing that has been said by the democrats stounds me like it will be very satisfactory. patty murray says she doesn't mind going over the fiscal cliff. dick durbin says we can't take up entitlements this year and

the president says you can't touch social security plus he wants more spending and whatever the deal is. that's not what the american people thought the fiscal cliff was about. they thought it was about trying to have something to force us, force our congress and our president to do something about the deficit and debt situation. everything they're talking about will make it worse. >> what's the answer? will we have the deal? >> the real answer is to have comprehensive. look at this. i as a republican, i would take raising the rates on the two top brackets if, in return, we had tax reform laid out over a period of months, if we had entitlement reform. we have to control defense spending. we have to control other no non- -- other discretionary non-defense spending. i think if you have the whole package, i would hold my nose

despite the fact raising those two tax brackets is bad economics, bad for jobs, will hurt the economy, i would hold my nose to get the other done. what i wouldn't do is vote for that and do nothing else. >> agree completely. what i've been saying here. steve rattner. >> i agree completely. to get a big deal we all have to hold our nose a little bit and accept things we don't want. the only thing i would slightly push back on what governor barbour said, i think the president has been more forthcoming than you suggested. he's put entitlements on the table and put a trillion-eight on the table in cuts. i think he's serious to do serious business on entitlement and wants the republicans to do serious business on rates. a number of republicans have been using the sound bite on the deficit in the first two months of the year going up 16%. that may be true. there are two months in which there have been cycles and the

deficit has been flat -- but we have a spending problem, i agree, we have a spending problem. >> you agree all we're talking about is raising taxes on the top 2%, even if we do that 39.6%, that doesn't make a dent in the long term debt. >> you need $4 trillion of deficit. $4 trillion of deficit reduction is what you need. raising those two rates gets you $450 billion, gets you 10% of the total. most of it has to come from spending. nobody disagrees about that. >> chuck todd. >> look, the other part of this we're not talking about i actually think could hang up the whole thing is this issue of the debt ceiling, which is how serious is the white house about not cutting a deal? are they willing to do some deal that doesn't include the debt ceiling? if they're not, you know, here's how i sort of look at this. you have to ask yourself to the haley barbours of the world, if you're being asked to hold your

nose on taxes, if boehner gives up leverage on the debt ceiling he'd have in two months politically, what did you get in return for that? that's what's unclear to me. that's what i can't figure out, because, you know, there has to be a place here, what boehner's folks keep telling the white house, we're not going to lay down here. we have to save some political face here, you have to understand that. if you're not going to own entitlement reform. the white house doesn't want to do that publicly, willing to be dragged to it, they shouldn't expect to get this idea they're going to get unlimited powers to raise the debt ceiling without it becoming an issue in two months. what i would say -- the whole deal could get institutelescutt sealin ceiling. >> i can save everybody time now, republicans in the house aren't going to give up the

right to fight over the debt ceiling. >> i don't think the white house is aware of that yet. >> let me tell our dear friends and a lot of people in the white house, i can guarantee you right now, the house republicans are not going to give up that right. >> understand that. they have to give up the right to fight in february. we can't have another fight two months later. >> haley, we were talking about what's right in front of us. how do we look back at what happened in november and talking to dan bartlett about what happened and how do we prevent it from happening four years from now for republicans and conservatives. >> i heard you say this was an election republicans should have won. i agree with you, it's an election republicans should have won. m first, what are the lessons, that negative campaigns still works and one of the first rules of politics still holds. any attack unanswered is an attacked a midst. when the democrats made what jim messina called in "the new

yorker," the great bet or grand bet that in the spring and summer they could run negative personal advertising against romney and disqualify him he'd never recover from they turned out to be right. romney's campaign did not answer, i think is clearly a mistake. but i'm not being critical of romney. he did a lot more right than wrong, but the fact of the matter is at the end of the day, he didn't run on his record, he didn't even try to run on his record. he ran on mitt romney's a bad person. >> jeff greenfeld negative campaigning which has been around forever or this weird fear you must play to a base that is backed up by extreme forces in the media, that ultimately can't win? >> i think, when governor barbour says romney didn't run on his record, the irony is he couldn't have won the nomination running on his record because his record governor of massachusetts was centrist

moderate pro gay rights and pro-choice and the republican base wasn't about to accept that in any candidate so romney had to turn himself into a pretzel. >> you literally watched that transformation into a pretzel happen -- i'm not trying to sound funny. let me disa question naive, the one the base hated, couldn't he have won, jon huntsman? >> couldn't have won the nomination. >> of course not. >> i do want to go back because i do disagree with what gene robinson said, it wasn't tactics. this more than any other election than 2004 was a presidential election determined by tactics. when you have the obama campaign telling john heilemann, speaking of pot smoking, telling john heilemann, in the "new york" magazine, just telling him out-right, we are going to destroy mitt romney. we are not going to run on our record. we are going to make him an

illegitimate candidate, and then they go out and they do that. as you said, romney's people let him do it, didn't respond appropriately. that's a tactic. when you have the obama people going to nine states and microtargeting just those nine states. if you're in 41 other states, you're irrelevant to them. i'm not mocking them. that's good. >> joe, i would say that the attacks on romney were a strategy, not a tactic. if i said a whiling a, jeff said i said romney couldn't run on his record. if i said that i misspoke, i meant obama couldn't run on his record, didn't try. that's why their campaign was to disqualify romney. i apologize if i said that wrong. but, look, remember 1984, when reagan ran for re-election, the economy was blowing and going. he never mentioned jimmy carter's name. you would have thought george bush was president obama's opponent in this election.

he talked about bush's fault, it's bush's fault and the disqualification of romney was not about his policies as governor of new york, he was a vulture capitalist, doesn't care about people like you jr, he doesn't pay his income tax, has cayman island bank accounts, blah blah blah, he's a quintessential plutocrat married to a known equestrian. [ applause ] >> it wasn't he was for bad policy. >> governor haley barbour, thank you so much as always. >> what are we going to see today, chuck, in the negotiations? >> i think the less we see the better. i mean, that's sort of the way this is going. if we don't see -- you know, we'll see. i think there's going to be a couple more bumps in the next couple of days, but by friday, saturday, sunday, if -- they've got to be able to reach an

agreement. by the way, if they don't, then look for -- then we're going to get the patchwork just where republicans figure out a way to just pass those middle class tax rates, get out of town and fight in february. >> coming up, after-hours at the white house, a new issue of town&country explores the best and worst of presidential partying from jfk to obama, editor joining us next. keep it right here on "morning joe".

up next, editor of town&country magazine. [ male announcer ] when it comes to the financial obstacles

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fielden. this is kind of fun. the white house. joining us, the editor of town&country magazine, jay

fielden. exploring after-hours at the white house. >> this is a great article. they actually rate the presidents on how they do entertaining, complete with champagne glasses. barack obama gets 4 out of 5 champagne glasses. >> or only having six state dinners. i guess the way he carried them on, a lot in the style of the kennedys, in terms of the black tie glamour and michelle loving to dress up and wearing great clothes, great guests lists, et cetera, he's made a splash. i think he can throw a lot more. looking back at these 50 years of presidential swauares starti with ike goes back a long way. >> ike did not rate so well. you have a picture of his family. >> looking a bit glum. >> alone, glumly watching a

movie. >> let's scan over here. richard nixon, a big surprise, quaker that he was, actually threw a pretty good party in town&country. >> would you guess he was the one who threw the most state dinner is in the shortest amount of time in office. 76 in 3 1/2 years. >> and loved -- >> was a great pal with duke ellis. sammy davis junior, knew how to play the piano an could yusheck up and make sure certain people didn't show up if he was paranoid about their allegiance to him. >> a great shot of lbj and something on her head, to he other page, not a big surprise. 5 out of 5 champagne glasses. >> bill and hillary were very set on not getting stamped with

the kind of heehaw stigma of the carters, who banned hard alcohol and, of course, you know, had picnics on the white house lawn while he was wearing cardigan. bill made sure he again got big names and bringing in many of the hollywood stars he saw in movies he saw in arkansas. >> this makes me sad. another former southern governor didn't do as well, jimmy carter, 1 out of 5 champagne bad food, no alcohol and billy carter. >> oh, no, it didn't. >> the official drink was sweet tea. >> nothing wrong with that. >> i do like sweet tea, but i like a little something in it sometimes. >> reagan five out of five. no surprise, he was the master. >> he was the master and most of the, a lot of the memories we had of very glamorous nights like that. pictures of princess di were

during the reagan years. there he is trying to cut in on frank sinatra with his wife. >> even if you're president, don't do that. >> ford loved it, too. horsing around with the soccer ball. nothing better than that. but then george, too, bummer. to bed early. >> why? >> he left his own parties and he had very few of them. unlike his father who loved to have a vodka tonic in his hand. >> greenfield, that sounds like me. i may have more common in george w. than i think. i leave my own parties or fall asleep on the couch. >> at this point in my life, sounds like a wild night. >> a time when the country wants a first lady who will wear gowns and the same president who carried his own garment bag, they want him to be unimperial. that's not really right, it's too country bumpkin.

so, in a sense, this is more than just the social stuff. where the country is and what it wants from its leaders. >> that's what we were after. the social aspect which isn't often analyzed. i think it does that and i think you also see, as you just mentioned, obama is in that moment where there is a little bit of the reagan glamour, but also a little need for the modesty and -- >> can you imagine how many glasses we would be talking -- >> oh, you would have to put ten out there. >> absolutely. >> jfk, massachusetts jfk four out of five. he did bring glamour to the white house. >> first president who really did. >> yep. miller. i don't know if he had a good time, though. i think he and jackie were often at each other's throats.

>> i think he had a good time. even during his inaugural campaigns. >> you remember, you remember, you had eight -- >> i'm sorry, go ahead. >> please, feel free. eight years of dwight howard who xwoebd would have confused with glamour. you had the oldest president succeeded by the youngest elected president and a first lady who i think she was 30 or 31. amazing. >> unbelievable. >> that was the first lady who could have stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine. >> sure. >> and there was a sense of not only a generational assertion, where it is our turn now, but we can compete with the parises and the romes and any other place in the world on the glamour front. >> very striking if you were to look at the pictures, the cliche of the royal family has now been beaten to death, but there is a

certain validity to that. >> thank you so much. the new issue about after hours at the white house. coming up, the unintended consequences of when america's entitlement programs fail. also, fortune magazine leigh gallagher joins the conversation. keep it right here on "morning joe."

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jeff greenfield, thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> say hi to our friends at yahoo! news. >> thank you for using the column. thank you for respectfully disagreeing with me. >> on tomorrow's show thomas friedman and best selling author and wartime journalist sebastian junger. a right to work bill is being fought over in michigan. the auto worker capital of the country. we'll discuss the impact, straight ahead on "morning joe." ♪ [ male announcer ] born from the elements. ♪ destined to take them over.

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good morning. it's 8:00 on the east coast. 5:00 a.m. on the west coast. time to wake up as you take a live look at new york city. welcome back to "morning joe." back with us on set, we have mike barnicle and steve ratner. >> not that i'm not interested in your obesity story. but afghanistan. mike barnicle, who would ever believe that these troops, it says these troops still need help. if they want to shoot american troops, they don't need any help, they keep the gun steady. >> that's front page "new york times." they need help.

yesterday afternoon, 5:00 yesterday afternoon -- >> you could smell it coming, mike. we'll be stuck there after 2014. >> a plane landed at albany, new york, lance corporal, 26 years of age. his body was on that plane, he is going it be buriied today. yesterday it was announced that nicholas checque was killed rescuing an american. front page "new york times" we have to get out of there. >> the thing is, we've been saying it since 2009 when they were talking about tripling the number of troops. it doesn't work in afghanistan. we went from an anti-terror campaign to antisurgeoncy campaign. "the times" reports more violence before this surge where we sent more americans to die or

be wounded or kept away from their families. >> yet another reason that there is no point. but at some point, we have to consider -- >> the thing is, what do you do? what do you do when we've been saying for three years because the people we interviewed for three years. you can look into their eyes and these policymakers had no idea what we were doing in afghanistan other than making sure that this president and this congress wasn't responsible for, "losing the war." steve ratner, one out of 23, are we real really going to get out in a year? >> one opportunity is to get out in a year and turn it back to them. >> i think we should get out sooner. i'm just saying, we heard this story before. >> it can go either way. we have to stay because we can fix this. it's just time to leave and we did what we could do and you can't wish for democracy more than people wish for themselves.

look at the history, we all know the history of afghanistan. no one has been successful in turning afghanistan into a stable place. >> it seemed like for a year, a year and a half, 18 months, seemed like alexander the great had a shot. >> no, i just read. slipped through his fingertips, the british, the russians, us, who is going to be stupid enough to go there in the future? >> be clear after 2014, they say we have no combat troops there. americans in harm's way and you can read the paper every couple weeks. americans dying over there. >> we will still have this problem because it is a hot bed of terrorists and we have to figure whether there is some anti-terrorist operation that we can conduct there. >> we could spend some time trying to make our military more effective and, now, i will get to the story. you will keep a straight face because it's important. the "washington post" is reporting that the u.s. army is getting rid of soldiers.

dismissing them because they don't meet fitness standards. >> yep. >> obesity is a rising concern in the armed forces. has even been cited by military officials as a national security concern. between 1998 and 2010, the number of active duty military personnel characterized as overweight or obese has more than tripled and now the leading cause of ineligibility for people who want to join the army, according to military officials. some major american cities are seeing their first success in stemming the growing rate of obesity. philadelphia, new york, los angeles and other communities across the u.s. are finding modest success rates in this. the number of reported obese children was down 5.5% over the last five years, in new york city schools, mayor bloomberg. researchers are not aware of what is behind the -- >> he is a kill joy.

>> i'll take it. >> what part of your joy has he killed? >> kill joy. >> what is it you want to do that you can't do any more? >> children across the city, even in poor neighborhood have access to equally healthier food. i'm sorry, i'm sorry, that's terrible. he should stop that right now. what? >> we're just talking about smoke. >> i figure willie and i keep getting kicked out of the lobby. >> he has literally saved our society from eating it to death. and i appreciate it. >> i miss part of the sights that you encounter when there was smoking in the cities. the employees walking around and pows and smoking cigarettes. >> i know. at least they were walking downstairs and then walking back up, i guess. >> you want bloomberg for a

fourth term now? >> i think he's done an incredible job on this issue. people have made fun of him, mocked him, they made one-page in "new york times." i kind of do. >> of course you do. >> what about democracy? >> democracy. >> it was not democratic the way he got his third term. >> you have the big gulp thing. >> i found some nice -- >> so, help me out here, willie. help me out. we're talking about -- no, i'm just curious. why is it that liberals are so crazy about tobacco smoke? >> because it kills you. >> can i finish? you know, really, have i ever once interrupted you? >> it's a pattern. >> sorry. i'm sorry. >> we need to have our own space. >> can we have an intervention. >> you talk, i talk.

can i talk? >> yes. >> so why is it, willie, liberals, oh, tobacco. big, bad tobacco and yet they celebrate that you can live long now. you can smoke pot, smoking pot is great, it's liberation, yeah, yeah, yeah, baby. >> doesn't kill you. >> but you can't, but cigarette smoking is bad. >> doesn't do the lung thing. >> it doesn't kill you. >> pot. oh, so pot is good for you, steven. >> it is. >> you only smoke it for -- poor willie when he was 15 he was climbing up, he had -- >> oh, my. the hypocrisy here. >> you get rid of those glasses. marijuana comes from nature and

deep -- >> buy it at whole foods. >> is it addictive? no. ra tr rattner seems to know a lot. >> a lot of people i played who would beg to differ. >> what about the rest of the news? there there is no news today. what do we have in front of "new york times" today? >> oh, my goodness. >> what about right to work sph. >> what about right to work? >> two big news stories i was going to do and then -- that is interesting. that is interesting. john mccain wants to be on the committee to, so he can cross examine susan rice. we'll see if that happens. should they pay mike? >> yes, they should. they should. he deserves it. they need him. their fan base needs him and

they should do it. what do you think, willie? >> i think the money that zack just made means that you have to pay him that much. >> what do you think, steve, you're a huge mets fan? >> best thing that happened to the team in three years. >> man, how are the mets doing? >> well, hapfully it's off season. >> yeah. >> yikes. >> mika cannot believe what happened to this segment. >> i'm embarrassed. >> are we doing this live? >> do you want me to quickly tell you about the fiscal -- >> get that extra half hour to work things off. we have a good show coming up today, mika? >> the fiscal cliff stuff, the one-on-one noexations are going well. "getting more serious." the fight about it all continues. how about right to work. thousands of people are expected to converge on the michigan state capital in lancing today, as part of a controversial union battle that is about to unfold.

>> that is going if be fascinating. >> are we going to be serious? >> yes, yes. when in doubt, serious. >> asking you about pot or growing the economy? growing weed or the economy? >> republican lawmakers are trying to push through this. >> michigan is a heavily unionized state, why would it be going right to work? enormous downward pressure on american wages coming from companies all over the world that can make things cheaper here than else where. our wages are competitive in lot of ways. do you want fewer jobs at higher wages or more jobs at lower wages? what you see in this is a decision that we want more jobs. >> you look at the trend lines for michigan, detroit. i think that's a pretty easy. i mean, unemployment rate is horrible. detroit, you know, in 1960, one

of the wealthiest cities in america. >> the fourth largest city in the country. >> fourth. >> by the way, this is a done deal. all the way through the senate and goes through the house today, which is a republican house and the republican governor who said he will sign it. >> it's very, i think it's symbolically important of two things. one, the politics of it all and what we've seen in wisconsin and else where. secondly, it's economic phenomenon. basically a statement that jobs and we're willing to take even if it means lower wages. >> i carry this around because i'm a total. if you read the insourcing boom this month. you disagree with it -- either that or you're stoned. >> he's skeptical. >> he's laughing, he's stoned. but the article suggests that maybe, it suggests that maybe outsourcing was a fad and not a

good fad for mench business. >> joe, these are stories they love when it happens. this not happening in very large numbers and here is the really important part. where it's happening, workers are willing to accept much lower wages to bring these jobs back. >> what do you think about the article they reference where he says i'm bringing jobs back to america, it makes more economic sense. >> he's bringing back jobs to america but i can tell you by memory, he brought a bunch of jobs back in lexington, kentucky. he'll get lexington, kentucky, out. >> can i get you guys to, do you feel like i do? >> he brought back a bunch of jobs in lexington, kentucky, but much lower wages? >> i think it was appliance jobs. >> they had the huge appliance city down there and all these massive buildings. they had their own zip code.

and one building after another closed down. he is starting up one assembly line after another. that rigoing to get paid $30 an hour. no. >> but this is the important point. how do you have robust where people making $30 an hour earning $14 an hour. how do you grow an economy like that? >> do we want these jobs in germany building bmws. so, you mentioned germany. so, volkswagen opened a plant in chattanooga a few years ago, 2,000 new jobs. great fanfare our great friend was down there. 2,000 jobs, every one of which started at $14.50 an hour. >> right. they're not all going to be at $14.50. volkswagen was moving these jobs here because we're the low-wage country. >> are you suggesting that we

push these jobs away? i would rather americans have a shot at $17 an hour job than having it in china. >> i agree with you. write down the time. i actually agree with you, but i have to understand the consequences are pretty severe. the american lifestyles for -- >> again, though, i'm sorry, mike, the quenss is are, we have two choices. we can't get 1965 wages. we either have these jobs in lexington or alabama and germany and this is at least for some of the younger -- a chance for younger americans to get some good jobs. >> if you're taking a job that pays $14.50. it means one of two things. "a," you don't have a job so you're getting a job or "b" you're taking a job that is a higher paying job. come on, this is good news. >> okay, but they're not all 14/50. harvard review people should read it, it's a march edition.

this is a remarbleable story and i bring it up as this debate. if you're a union leader there and you want to lose all the jobs or get a job at $18, $19 an hour. if you're union leader you probably vote for the fewer jobs at the higher wages. if you're a michigan person, which is why this is reasonably popular. they just want a job. i'm willing to take it at $14.50 an hour. >> apple announced it is bringing some jobs back and they have a duty to do. >> more generous with their profits. >> if you do something with that, it's not a huge number. >> anyway, guys, read the "atlantic monthly." i had joe on comeback and great article in outsourcing boom. outsourcing was a fad, a corporate fad of some businesses trying to make a quick buck over a decade and at the ebd of the

day, it didn't work. even if it worked for a while -- >> saying it was a fad is a really dangerous thing to say because that's what what it was. the jobs may come back, if people cut their wages enough, but that's why they're coming back, not because outsourcing didn't work. coming up next, nick crist off about what happens when american's safety net programs don't work as well as planned. a hollywood classic is taking broadway by storm. dan lauria, the musical is here. but, first, bill karins with a check on the, who is bill karins? >> phil cavens. phil, take it. >> like a golfer, right. >> go. >> so happy you guys found out my high school nickname. that's fantastic. good morning, everyone. on this tuesday still looking at all the damage from what happened yesterday with all

those tornadoes and we had a couple outside new orleans and louisiana and southern mississippi and the one down there just outside of orlando. edgewater, florida. this is how impressive. look how dangerous and dark this was. no deaths reported, but scary scenes yesterday in florida. this morning, here's what we are looking at. a few showers and stornls in south florida and could see a few strong storms. i don't expect the chance of tornadoes today like we had yesterday. maybe some isolated wind damage and the rain in new york city now exiting boston. a little bit of lake-effect snow between buffalo and erie, otherwise awinter temperatures. as far as the forecast goes, we'll warm it up. heading in the right direction in the next couple of days and temperatures in the midwest by wednesday and thursday above freezing and begin to melt a lot of that snow. leave you the shot of a nice,

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oh, the traffic is getting bad in new york city. welcome back to "morning joe." >> traffic is bad, but at least the weather is beautiful. >> no. it's horrible. >> rainy. >> okay, joining us now columnist from "new york times"

profiting from a child's illiteracy reads in part this. this is painful for a liberal to admit, but conservatives have a point when they suggest that america's safety net can sometimes entangle people in a soul-crushing dependency. our poverty programs do rescue many people, but other times they backfire. some young people don't join the military, because it's easier to rely on food stamps and anti-poverty programs also discourage marriage. in a means tested program like supplemental security income a woman raising a child may receive a beg bigger check if she refrains from marrying the hard-working guy she likes. yet marriage is one of the best forces to blunt poverty most wrenching of all are the parents who think it's best if a child stays illiterate because then the family may be able to claim

a disability check each month. nick, that is a concept that is hard to get your mind around. that people would do that. >> it was wrenching to report. i went to kentucky, which is a very poor area, it's been very hard hit by methamphetamine and prescription drug overdoses and people are searching for any way to get an income that they can and they have figured out that the child disability program, ssi, is a way way that they can do that. it started out for children who were, you know, classically disabled who had some major physical disability or mentally retarded. 18% of children in the country are in ssi and a check up to $877 a month but it can stave off poverty. >> just brought up the stunning fact that there are parents who see their children moving ahead in school, getting help, learning to read, becoming more

proficient with math and then pulling them out of those programs because, if they keep improving academically, they'll lose that check every month. >> they fear that their child succeeding is a threat to the family income. >> a fear of a child's success, which, of course, turns what we have known about family life, not only in america, but in the world for -- in 10,000 years. you want your children to do better. support the family. >> conversely, one of the ways to show that your child does have a disability is to have that child be illiterate or do poorly in school. so, the incentives in a very well meant program are exactly wrong. >> is this, i take it, conservatives have been hailing this column as example of your insight and liberals have been shocked, stunned and deeply saddened. >> yeah, i think that's fair. but i do think that there is beginning to be more evidence about what does work. i mean, really are now

randomized control trials where we try anti-poverty programs where they are new drugs and see what works and what doesn't. >> what does work? we have been trying this since 1965 in a major way and we've seen urban blight follow. the best intention policies of lbj and other liberal -- >> "a," i would say the war on poverty did succeed in dramatically reducing poverty among senior citizens. that did -- >> just the kids have become more -- >> but what does work is parent visitation programs so that you go and work with a child initially when the mother is pregnant and then for the first couple of years get the mother reading to the child and get the mother hugging the child, talking to the child and get that child, obviously, at the starting line. >> but if the mother doesn't want that child at the starting line because the mother doesn't

get that check. if the mother says, i can get married to the hardest working guy in town, but if i do that, i'm going to lose my benefits. if, if i decide that i'm going to go into the military, that's a lot tougher -- which you bring up. that young men and women are deciding not to go in the military because getting a welfare check is easier. >> a real problem with incentives. even in that context, these visitation programs, a program called the nurse/family partnership and vigorously testing it ends at age 2. but in the teenage years the knurl girls are more likely to graduate from high school and less likely to get arrested. >> sponding between mother and child between birth and 2. >> essentially working with at-risk mothers and situations where kids don't often get the support they need and trying to give them something more like what middle class are more likely to get. >> so, is the problem here ssi

or does it go well beyond that? with wrong incentives. >> i think it goes beyond that. fundamentally what we see is what works. parent visitation programs and including early childhood education and some of the most effective programs we have seen and preschool project and they had these remarkable long-term effects and that is the one thing that seessentially as a nation we don't do. >> nick, you mentioned it earlier. incentives is the problem here. we're incentvising the wrong thing and encouraging the wrong thing and discouraging the wrong thing. we do this in the tax code, too. this is what drives behavior. it's funny, one of your commentors. take some of the money, some of the funds and pour it towards, you know, incentvising young women and young married couples under 18 to not have children. that gets into a sticky

situation, what do you think about that? uneducated women early pregnancies before the children are born kind of helping the problem there. >> it begins to feel a little bit kind officy in terms of telling people of a social class, you shouldn't have children. can create incentives for getting jobs, for example. it does work. there have been programs for people getting out of jail or juvenile detention where they have special incentives to get a job and those pay for themselves a couple times over. i surely believe in incentives. i'm not sure about that one. >> except there is a problem, mike, that, heck, when i ran in 1994, talked about what was wrong with our welfare state and why we needed welfare restorm and say that the government says that it will pay a young woman money so long as she doesn't get

married and she doesn't get a job. and if you have more children out of wedlock, you get more money. i understand we have a root problem. we don't want to go down this path, but we have to look at the other side of it, as well. see that all the incentives are still wrong. >> a couple things about nick's column. first of all, this is not an epidemic. it's not something that is going to threaten the republic. and it's also something that is not new. 1994, you were speaking about it. in 1966 or '67, the united states senate formed a senate nutrition committee. it was chaired by george mcgovern and robert kennedy was on that committee. one of the first tours the committee took was of western kentucky where the poverty was as deep and emdemic as it is today. now, the growth of these programs and the expansion of these programs has reached into inner cities. it is well beyond kentucky and

it gets to the point that at the end of the day, joe, when you're talking about ssi and talking about welfare programs that exist, it still remains. we talked about this earlier, the most important word in the english language for family and self-definition and for purpose is j.o.b. job. that's the most important word in the english language. get a job. >> we don't have as many of those any more. >> not that we don't have as many of those, but i would guess the area where you went to and many other area wheres we're 10, 15 minutes away from. whether you're in midtown manhattan or at the capital in washington, you now have generations of americans that have been raised with this as a way of life. the great question is, how do we break the cycle? maybe you answered that question. maybe we go to the early childhood and maybe we go 0 to 2

and 0 to 3. >> i don't think we can give up on people, but i do think it's a lot easier to intervene in a way that will last and be cost effective at the beginning of life rather than certainly in adulthood or even in the teenage years. these people were telling me, once a kid is in the second or third grade and, you know, can't read, is in trouble. they can pretty much predict who isn't going to graduate from high school. >> what countries do it right? have generous welfare state that doesn't create a permanent underclass? can you think of -- do we -- i know that's -- you went to kentucky, not finland, that's not a fair question. but i'm just curious. does anybody have any examples? >> i don't. >> we don't think about poverty here, which is just such a problem and growing. growing in the suburbs. that's the latest trend in poverty. >> i'll give you an example. japan. i lived in japan five years and they had a very good early

childhood education program. there's very limited class difference and i think that that has worked pretty well and, you know, bringing, everybody prepared to participate in the labor force. >> just bring this up, again, i think there are some people who don't watch the show regularly, but, of course, they heard that nick was coming on and like one direction. >> you should see my twitter, it's going wild. >> nick crikristof is on, my far was unemployed in the 1970s and $40 in mississippi, once a week, allowed him to buy groceries for his kids and put a tank of gas in the car. so, these programs, there are extremes and there are problems, but mike said, this won't break the country, but certainly destroying lives. >> there are, you know, blind kids who desperately need their families at home and that

support makes a huge diffdiffer. the problem is when you have much more ambiguous situations and parents think they can gain the cyst. two-thirds of these kids on child disability become disabled as adults. they never have a job and kind of writing them off. >> nick kristof, thank you very much. your column online at nytimes.com. please stay with us. when we come back, one of the stars of "a christmas story" the musical. dan lauria joins us next. on "morning joe." the holidays are here and we're here with cyreeta

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dan lauria playing the title character alongside judith light. it was a return to the 1980s of sorts. lauria having made a name for himself in "the wonder years" and with a tivo premiere you can see both those tv shows in a few clicks. >> back in those days, you never

asked yourself, do my parents love me? never crossed your mind. you were there, they took care of you. it was their job to raise you, your job to let them. when they said, don't run with scissors, button your coat or you'll shoot your eye out, maybe even they didn't know it, but that's what it was. love. >> oh, wow. that looks good. >> it gets better, too. >> does it? >> yeah. >> that was a scene from "christmas story" the original. you recognize him from everywhere, from everywhere in your life, co-star of the broadway play, actor dan lauria. good to have you. >> thank you. such a fan of the show. before we begin, i want to give, i know i'm a little late. >> $1,000. >> all right. david axelrod. >> i enjoyed watching him shave. >> wasn't that something? >> thank you.

>> that is so nice. >> really a christmas present to friends of mine, gary cole all of which have children with autism. >> slash the stache.com. >> i wanted to thank you, also, when you have a pulpit like this and you use it to help others, it really boeldz well for all of us in the business. appreciate it. thank you. >> we appreciate it. we were talking before about lombardi. >> he was the star of lombardi. i actually saw it. >> mika saw tom brady making out with gisele. >> what's wrong with that? >> what? really. seriously, get a room. not that interesting. >> before we move on to "christmas story." let's talk about lombardi. >> they were all there. >> and all the old packers came,

you know, horning was there, jim taylor spoke twice after seeing the performance. robinson was great. great story. he even came to rehearsal. so, odd thing about the coach. any of the x-players you talk to, the first five minutes they had you rolling with laughter and then every one of them broke down in tears. frank gifford, we did a talk back, he just broke down. >> it was wonderful. >> and i had judith light. >> what a great co-star. you guys have a history. now, our friends at tivo, they overlooked one, one credit that you had that you need to tell everybody. >> yes, please, share. >> i was judith light's on "one life to live." >> okay. >> she won two daytime emmys. she's just phenomenal.

phenomenal person and phenomenal actress. >> it's something that you said when they were looking for co-stars for lombardi you immediately thought -- >> they asked me for five names and literally she was the first name i put on the list. i love judith. she's a great actress. >> sometimes you don't want to call something like from 1983 a classic, it makes you feel old. but "a christmas story" is a classic. >> it is, again, like everything in my business, it's all related. vince vaughn came to see "lombardi" and the original ralphi and they created new tv series "sullivan and son" and put me on it. peter asked me to play this part in "a christmas story." >> do you love it? >> i love it and i never sing one note. >> this movie was a classic. this is the first co-edmovie i went to.

i was in the sixth grade. it has significance for me. a lot of movies they get transferred to broadway, you can totally see it. there was a scene with a leg lamp. >> it is right out of an old musical. >> is there a song, "you'll shoot your eye out." >>. >> yes. really broadway pros. >> the clip we played, though, in essence in the clip we showed, you're playing yourself. >> never play myself. >> wait, that's why i ask -- hold on a second. >> i bet you cry. >> that's why i asked if you love it because it seems like you when we see you up there. >> well, you know, my mentor was charles durnig and they both had the same philosophy. it took me ten years to act and ten more years to learn how not to. >> take that a step further. what do you mean by that?

>> well, i think, especially today on tv with all the editing and everything as a single head shot we lose the art of listening and acting and people think they have to lay on lines where in real life we don't. we just don't act and the actors who i admire like spencer tracy, the jimmy stewarts, fondas, it was very much. if it was real to me, it will be real to you. make it easy. it's just acting, don't put any obstacles in front of yourself. >> i can't wait to see this. >> i can't wait to see it. mike, you going to make it? >> absolutely. >> i have to bring my kids. you can see "a christmas story" the musical at lunt-fontanne theatre. >> i'm taking my family. what about you, mika? >> i'm going to bring my girls. do you think, will they behave?

after i took them to "the book of mormon" it's never been the same for them. i'll try and clean it up. that's a mistake, right? >> we really appreciate it. appreciate your kindness and -- >> thank you, i'll send this right to susan axelrod. "the wonder years" isn't the only time that dan lauria got to work with the savidge family, he starred in "boy meets world" starring his brother, fred savidge. you could access to both tv shows at a moment's notice. put it all at your fingertips brought to you by tivo. ♪ these are...

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time for business before the bell with brian shactman. >> beautiful out there today. >> what is the word on wall street? what are we looking? >> things are looking pretty good. futures are up about 50. two-day fed meeting starts today. funny with the fiscal cliff, no one is talking about it. expecting $55 million more in quantitative easing to be announced and also fiscal cliff, i would say, just with a little bit of positive vibe. i don't want to get into too much because i think everyone is tired of discourse at this point and little bit of optimism maybe on wall street and i also want to point out, aig, and an unbelievable story in many ways. the government selling out of its shares and $182 billion bailout. the government now will make a 22.7 billion profit.

>> say that one more time and let's underline that. who would have believed it? i wouldn't have believed it. say it again. >> $182 billion bailout. the u.s. government will profit $22.7 billion. they owe 92% of aig and i did not, personally, think that this would work. but robert who came in as ceo and dealing with cancer turned this company around and sold a ton of assets and just, honestly, frankly, an unbelievable story. >> it is unbelievable. mike, we may -- t.a.r.p. same thing. >> off the bank bailout. off of aig bailout. >> interesting. brian, thank you. [ female announcer ] imagine skin so healthy, it never gets dry again. can your moisturizer do that? [ female announcer ] dermatologist recommended aveeno has an oat formula,

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i'm meteorologist bill karins. a nice, quiet travel day compared to the weather we had yesterday. the fog is gone and cold front coming through. florida only travel spot with rain and thunderstorms ales we go throughout the morning and afternoon and in the northwest, a light rain, but shouldn't cause as many travel concerns. enjoy your tuesday. all by cob. and you...rent from national. because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle... and go. you can even take a full-size or above, and still pay the mid-size price. i'm going b-i-g. [ male announcer ] good choice business pro. good choice. go national. go like a pro.

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with brandy who is stocking up for the holidays. look at that price. that's great! if you find a lower advertised price, walmart will match it at the register. really? yeah. there you have it. oh my goodness! that's the walmart low price guarantee. see for yourself. bring in your last receipt

and see how much you can save. be ready. with the season's tastiest brands. like sea pak shrimp spring rolls. delicious handmade rolls, authentic asian taste. walmart has everything you need to be ready for holiday hosting. with our low price guarantee backed by ad match. walmart. welcome back to "morning joe." time to talk about what we learned today. david axelrod's favorite actress. i also learned that i'm way too old because you were how old when you saw "a christmas story." >> i was in sixth grade in 1983. i don't want people to do the math, but you can do the math. >> i'm doing it. mike barnicle. >> that's what i learned. i almost put a gun in my mouth. i was in sixth grade in 1983